Abstract:

The Chinese names “xingxing”(orangutan),“daxingxing”(gorilla)and “heixingxing”(chimpanzee)are original loans from Japanese,but they are likely to lead to ambiguity. Now the Japanese have given up these words and switched to other words which no longer interfere with each other, while the original names are still used in Chinese.

Key words: orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, Japanese loanword